...and it showered babies...(30 weeks 3 days)

Two Sundays ago I got to have my baby shower! Two friends from school very graciously put a whole bunch of my favorite stuff together (mainly friends, candy, and CAKE!) and we showered it up at my house and out in the yard. It was blazingly hot, and a storm affected some drives home but other than that I would call it a roaring success. We got lots of cute stuff and with any luck we'll have a finished room to put it in soon! Ryan's parents stayed a few days post-shower and got started on the room for us! It's all taped up, and the trim paint is done. Man this baby thing is starting to feel real! We actually have a car seat sitting in our living room...weird.

On the birthing front we have essentially decided to do a home birth. We finally heard from the new midwife again and have our first appointment for a few weeks from now. I'm very excited because I wasn't sure if we'd be able to do this so late in the game and of course once I decided this was what I wanted to do, we had a little trouble getting an appointment. In the meantime I had a regularly scheduled appointment at the midwife practice I've been going to and, while I wasn't going to bring it up, the midwife we happened to be seeing that day said something about homebirth and so we started talking about it. She had both her kids at home and was telling us how many of the other midwives and labor & delivery nurses that they work with all had their children at home. Ryan, who had been somewhat hesitant about the whole thing, just kind of looked at me, and was like, why are all the people who deliver babies as their profession in the hospital having their babies at home...? And it just kind of clicked. We're really excited to meet this midwife in a few weeks and finally get that long list of questions answered!

On a not so exciting note I have been having some pretty severe back pain that has made me pretty cranky (I apologize to anyone who has experienced the backlash of this…mostly Ryan). I was able to determine that it wasn't necessarily muscular pain, but didn't feel like nerve pain either since it wasn't tingly or burning. A friend of my mom's told me her niece went through the same thing and they figured out it was the spreading of all the ligaments around her back and pelvis that was causing the pain and she ended up doing some PT to get it better. I'm willing to do just about anything at this point. I've never experienced chronic pain and let me tell you it's pretty draining. I don't know how people live with it for years on end. I'm hoping to chew off the ear of a PT friend (I'm looking at you, Maria:) and maybe invest in some sports therapy massages or something…anything…to make it better. I don't want to be miserable for another two months. I'm also going to start slowing down at work. Up until now I've pretty much been working regular 40 hour weeks and with back pain and an hour commute each way on top of that I'm getting pretty exhausted. I need to get lots of rest and be in tip top shape not only for delivery but for when the baby's here since sleep will certainly be something of the past!

A good baby shower pic below…thanks again to everyone who planned, attended, and sent gifts!!